God chose to love us FIRST! And no one could come to belief without God first drawing upon an eventually willing and receptive heart. And for those with such a receptive heart and mind, He will guide them into belief and to salvation. But God has to move first, and had to make it possible by the Cross. He will soften but not tear open a hard heart - as some are so hard that only forcing them into belief would make them receptive - and this He will not do (violate their free will to end their permanently entrenched rejection).

"But how can man, limited by a sin nature, ever choose what is good? It is only through the grace and power of God that free will truly becomes “free” in the sense of being able to choose salvation (John 15:16). It is the Holy Spirit who works in and through a person’s will to regenerate that person (John 1:12-13) and give him/her a new nature “created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24). Salvation is God’s work. At the same time, our motives, desires, and actions are voluntary, and we are rightly held responsible for them."

Hamster, it can be dangerous and misleading to use isolated verses to gauge the truth of this issue.

Yes, agreed but "We are all condemned" !!!.......Oh no, might as well give up and go eat a burger

So God doesn't choose people to heaven or hell. But why would God want to know all of the ids before we are here? Wouldn't he want to see how we will end up? Yes he knows us but he wants to see our options and how we treat God and look at him

Usagi: So God doesn't choose people to heaven or hell. But why would God want to know all of the ids before we are here? Wouldn't he want to see how we will end up? Yes he knows us but he wants to see our options and how we treat God and look at him

Stop projecting human understandings, desires or incapabilities onto God. He is unlike us. He is unique and like no other being. And one of his abilities is that He has perfect knowledge of ALL things and actions that have happened in the past as well as those that will happen in the future. And He NEVER changes. He's always had the same unlimited abilities and knowledge - He lacks NOTHING in power, knowledge, justness, or love. So, it is impossible for Him to not see our future choices or to see people in Heaven or hell per THEIR ultimate response to Him. He sees future actions and events of the future like we do of things that happened only yesterday.

Sorry it’s just I want to understand God. But I guess we will never be able to

"Listen, philosopher, to what I tell thee: we believe, that the Almighty God from out of nothing did create by His Word and His Spirit both heaven and earth, and all the world both visible and invisible. The Word is the Son of God, Who didst come down upon the earth on account of our sins; he wast born of a Virgin, He lived amongst mankind, and suffered and died for our salvation, and then He arose, having redeemed by His sufferings the Original Sin, and He hath resurrected with Him the human race. We believe, that He is One in Essence and Equal-in-Dignity with the Father, and we believe this without any sly rationalisations, since it is impossible to grasp this mystery by human reason" - St. Spyridon

You'd think after a measly 1500 years, that we'd take the hint from this passage. But don't let an old Christian quote like that stop us

(mysticism)
(i) God is the 'First Cause'
(ii) God has a 'will-pleasure' (not a desire) to express Itself in Itself as Creation i.e., to manifest his total wisdom, total love and total almightyness everywhere [ref]
(iii) God is the everlasting life/light [ref].
(iv) God has Manifested himself within himself. [ref]
(v) God is Absolute Beingness
(vi) God is Omnipresence, Multiplicity (as an infinite number of Holy Monads) and Self-sufficiency
(vii) God as Absolute Beingness, manifests itself as the Logos and the Holy Spirit, 'and these three are one'.

Let's examine (ii) God created us in his own image. There is a hint here that we share some attributes with our creator, maybe share in his divine nature ?.

Psalm 82:6 I have said, “You are gods; you are all sons of the Most High. But like mortals you will die, and like rulers you will fall.”…

UsagiTsukino is a God ! Yes, Christian mysticism would refer to you as a man-God whereas Jesus was the God-man. (There is a significant difference between the two - but we'll try and 'reason' this one out later). As a God, does that mean we should walk around like a tosser and trash the place, doing damage, causing suffering to all ? Is that an attribute of God ? Is that really an expression of our divine nature ?

Now, what if we want to get married, have children? Have we pre-destined ourselves to such a fate ? More importantly...what if we wanted our children to go to university and become great scientists or great philosophers? Are they predestined to do that or do we help them along in that direction and then let them make the choice.

Together with scripture, Looking at our relationship between us and our children is always a good starting point to understand our relationship between God and us - That is why point (v) - God's greatest gift to man is to have a child ( - Little Hamster) was given to me by the HOLY SPIRIT.

Incidentally, I mentioned this Great revelation (of a child being the greatest gift) to my wife and she said "Yeah, just about all women know that instinctively anyway"

The next stage in understanding God a little better would involve some introspection, observation and a mediation. By self analysis, we can learn to distinguish our divine nature from our sinful nature. This is going onto the mystical path and needs a bit more time and effort to accomplish. It can be dangerous too ! If you are not under the Grace of God, it's inadvisable and probably impossible to go on this path.

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What is God?

If we are asked: “What is God?” and we say that we do know what God is, we'll be liars. But, if we say that we don't know what's God, again we'll be liars. In the same way if somebody asked you, "Do you know what the Sun is?" Of course, you'll say, "I know what the Sun is… just a ball of fire in the sky giving us light, heat, and keeping us warm during the winter." Are you sure you know what the Sun is? Do you know that the volume of the Sun is 1.3 million times bigger than the volume of the Earth? If we say that we know what the Sun is – we'll be liars. But, if we say that we don't know what the Sun is, again we'll be liars, because – we know something about the Sun.

Now what is God and what is not God? God is Absolute Beingness. Don’t even think that you are able to comprehend God, it is not possible. When you try to perceive the light by looking at the sun with your material eyes, you will be blinded. This is the same as trying to perceive God using your material brain. Yet we can observe God’s expressions and through the expressions we can know what God is, up to a certain point. So, what is God for us? In reality God is Spirit and only in Spirit and Truth we can approach him. Now we see God from a different point of view. We see God in a more practical way. Because, we say that God is the Absolute Selfhood. In Its Omnipresence there is not a sense of place where you don't see the Total Wisdom. The Total Wisdom is the expression of the Divine Selfhood or God. For us, God was, is and will always be.

But God is not what man calls God. Using the word God, mankind minimizes Absolute Beingness to his own measure. Man has created many gods. The ancient Greeks called them demigods and so did the Egyptians. They were simply creating elementals. God is not what some men believe – an idol, an icon or an elemental that performs phenomena. Of course phenomena can happen. But what are they? They are the result of dedication and concentration of many persons on a form, on a thought and this idea gets existence. But this happens automatically and these persons do not know how it happens, how they achieved it and how it may serve them. The elementals can be evil, destructive, or good and beneficial, but they are not God.

We have to sit down, think consciously about this and come to conclusions. Through meditation we have to enter into the meaning of God and our real Self; into what we are and what we are not, into what is God and what is not God. An easy explanation of God, which we must study, is Love. We have plenty within us and we express it. Even though we express it in a strange way, it is love. God is Love. When we interpret what is love in all its levels, this is another path which will lead us into the Truth. The Truth and the Light are not only reached by one path. All the paths are one road.

And now, something else: We are Gods as Spirit-Souls. What about our sometimes sinful Present-Day Personality are we not Gods? Unfortunately – we are, and we should be ashamed! Ashamed of what we are doing sometimes! Now, this is something you will find in the New Testament, in the Gospel. When the Godman, Joshua the Christ, was addressing the people, men or women, he was addressing their personalities. He was telling them "You are Gods and Sons of the Almighty" (Psalm 82 & John 10.34).. He didn't mean only as Spirit-Souls. He meant also you are Gods. So, in the nature and essence we are the Spirit-Soul. Otherwise we couldn't live and exist. But, we have developed around that Self a shell which is our personal egoism. And this personal egoism is responsible for guiding us away from God and our real nature – our Beingness.

What is Man ?

Now, in the Bible, in the Old Testament, there is much truth in its symbols. Much truth. We read in the Bible "God said: Let us create man according to our likeness and in our image". To “our image” means to the image of all the heavens… to the heavenly worlds. And “according to our likeness” means that mankind in its Divine Nature is similar to God just as the Archangels are. So mankind is in the image of the heavens, but where are these heavens? Christ was clear about that saying: “The kingdom of the heavens is within you.” That's clearly stated.

“Let us create man…” but, when did God say that? In time…in what sense of time?Always…in the Eternal Now. And in what language did God say that? Definitely, it was not a human language. “God Said,” now, this is symbolic and means that in God’s Absolute Total Wisdom He vibrated in Him, His Pleasure of creating man. To whom did God say: “Let us create man…”? It was to certain classes of Archangels. When God started vibrating and expressing His Will for the creation of man, immediately in that moment God’s Will and His vibration was reproduced in the Guardian Archangels. And the Guardian Archangels undertook the work of creating, making man. So, man is created. Man is created; the Spirit- Soul of man is not created. And of course, at that eternal moment, the same vibrations resonated in the other orders of the Archangels who received the Will of God “to create man” as their own will. And of course, at that very moment, those Spirit Beings destined to become humanized also started vibrating; feeling that vibration as the Pleasure of God and also their own vibration and pleasure. So, we have been incarnated by our own free will and the Will of the Almighty. Have that in mind. Immediately at that moment, one Super-consciousness from the class of the Thrones attached itself to its brother Spirit-Soul and was egofied with it (egofied means, being in at-one-ment, being in oneness), to be just like the human Spirit-Soul. So, one ray of that Archangel is egofied to accompany this Spirit on its way of becoming a Soul – a human being and that is our Guardian Archangel. Not only in the Christian faith but all serious religions, all the churches believe in the Guardian Angel, because – one can come in conscious contact with his Guardian Angel (or Archangel). Is this Archangel a part of our self? Yes and no. How? It is egofied. It partakes of our life in all the kingdoms of nature (material, psychical and noetical), but it keeps its purity all the time. And so, by this egofication [unification] of one of the Thrones, the Archangel we call the Metathronius, the composition of the human being started.

What is a human being now? A creature and a God! A creature means his bodies: the material body and its etheric double, the psychical body and its etheric double, and the noetical body and its etheric double. A human being is created, but "… according to our image and our likeness," which means to express a selfhood. This means, becoming a self-aware man or woman from the very beginning. Although in the beginning man was living in the caves with a club in his hands, but he had a selfhood. He was different from all the other animal life around him.

So, a human being is like a line with a center and two points at the ends. One end is the divinity (it's in your nature), your real Self, Soul, God, and the other is your human existence (which is the continuously changing personality, the continuously changing form – weather this form is in the material, the psychical, or the noetical plane). We have the creature and the creator. The main creators in a human being are, for his or her bodies the Holy Archangels, but, in them it is God. Now, a ray of our real Self never departed from the Infinite Beingness. This ray is to be humanized (to create our personality's selfhood).

I think to God watching us is like watching a movie he's already seen. Sure, all the characters in the movie have free will, but God knows exactly how they are going to use that free will. Nothing is a surprise to God.

Some here disagree with me but I think that God can choose to interact with His creation without knowing the outcome.

Take Nineveh for example. First God said He would destroy Nineveh. But when the people repented and turned from their wicked ways God did not destroy Nineveh.

God will destroy Nineveh (Jonah 3:4) - "Then Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk; and he cried out and said, "Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown."

God won't destroy Nineveh (Jonah 3:10) - "When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it."

It clearly says "God relented" from His decision. If He had not intended to destroy Nineveh (because He knew they would repent) it would not have said He relented.

Some here disagree with me but I think that God can choose to interact with His creation without knowing the outcome.

Take Nineveh for example. First God said He would destroy Nineveh. But when the people repented and turned from their wicked ways God did not destroy Nineveh.

God will destroy Nineveh (Jonah 3:4) - "Then Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk; and he cried out and said, "Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown."

God won't destroy Nineveh (Jonah 3:10) - "When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it."

It clearly says "God relented" from His decision. If He had not intended to destroy Nineveh (because He knew they would repent) it would not have said He relented.

Some here disagree with me but I think that God can choose to interact with His creation without knowing the outcome.

Take Nineveh for example. First God said He would destroy Nineveh. But when the people repented and turned from their wicked ways God did not destroy Nineveh.

God will destroy Nineveh (Jonah 3:4) - "Then Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk; and he cried out and said, "Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown."

God won't destroy Nineveh (Jonah 3:10) - "When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it."

It clearly says "God relented" from His decision. If He had not intended to destroy Nineveh (because He knew they would repent) it would not have said He relented.

Some here disagree with me but I think that God can choose to interact with His creation without knowing the outcome.

Take Nineveh for example. First God said He would destroy Nineveh. But when the people repented and turned from their wicked ways God did not destroy Nineveh.

God will destroy Nineveh (Jonah 3:4) - "Then Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk; and he cried out and said, "Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown."

God won't destroy Nineveh (Jonah 3:10) - "When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it."

It clearly says "God relented" from His decision. If He had not intended to destroy Nineveh (because He knew they would repent) it would not have said He relented.

Some here disagree with me but I think that God can choose to interact with His creation without knowing the outcome.

Take Nineveh for example. First God said He would destroy Nineveh. But when the people repented and turned from their wicked ways God did not destroy Nineveh.

God will destroy Nineveh (Jonah 3:4) - "Then Jonah began to go through the city one day’s walk; and he cried out and said, "Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown."

God won't destroy Nineveh (Jonah 3:10) - "When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it."

It clearly says "God relented" from His decision. If He had not intended to destroy Nineveh (because He knew they would repent) it would not have said He relented.

Or, it could be Anthropomorphic. Attributing human emotions to God, which seems like God changed His mind. God cannot change.

So the Bible got it wrong? I thought it was God-inspired?

I almost forgot who I was talking to.

Yes Stu, if the Bible isn't interpreted the way you want it to be, then that must mean that logically, the Bible is not inspired by God, or flat out wrong.

And I forgot who I was talking to - don't get so condescending and personal (as you so often do) just because I raised a question that you don't have an answer for or disagree with
Get off you high horse and just answer the question, you know play the ball and not the man.

The IS NOT an interpretation. It says quite clearly that God said He would destroy Nineveh. Then the people changed their ways, and God then changed His mind and did not destroy Nineveh. It's pretty simple really. Read the scripture.

Only when the blood runs and the shackles restrain, will the sheep then awake. When all is lost.

Or, it could be Anthropomorphic. Attributing human emotions to God, which seems like God changed His mind. God cannot change.

So the Bible got it wrong? I thought it was God-inspired?

I almost forgot who I was talking to.

Yes Stu, if the Bible isn't interpreted the way you want it to be, then that must mean that logically, the Bible is not inspired by God, or flat out wrong.

And I forgot who I was talking to - don't get so condescending and personal (as you so often do) just because I raised a question that you don't have an answer for or disagree with
Get off you high horse and just answer the question, you know play the ball and not the man.

The IS NOT an interpretation. It says quite clearly that God said He would destroy Nineveh. Then the people changed their ways, and God then changed His mind and did not destroy Nineveh. It's pretty simple really. Read the scripture.

The IS NOT an interpretation.

Of course it's an interpretation!

I just don't understand why it has to be the concrete, literal meaning, or nothing at all with you.

God is immutable and omniscient. Both of which you must deny, to hold to your interpretation!

1 Corinthians 1:99 God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Audie wrote:
"Christianity is not a joke, but it has some very poor representatives."

Stu, Scripture repeatedly says God is ALL-knowing (a bit about that here: https://www.gotquestions.org/God-omniscient.html). And so, this is either true or not. There are many, many incredible, detailed and fulfilled prophecies across Scripture. The ones about the Messiah alone are mind-boggling. What you are mistaking is that God does not change His mind, not in the sense like a man would, based upon new information he didn't previously have. But God reacts to us, finite creatures who live in real time, IN real time. There has never been an actual past or future thing that God hasn't always known about. Time is but a tool for Him. But God knows that we don't and can't know all that He does. He respects our limitations and reacts to us per our limitations of knowledge and ignorance of things past and future.

Notice Revelation 13:8's reference to the Book of Life - of which all Christians of all time are written - and especially not WHEN this book's names were written!

"and all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain."[/u]

One who would argue against God's omniscience can't possibly believe Scripture is God-given - because such claims are made throughout it!